My website updates are finished, and I am pleased to announce I have a new Liberia gallery in the Selected Work section of the website. If you subscribe to this blog in a reader you may have see some strange posts come through during the update, but that has been fixed and everything should be back to normal now. The current selection of images is basically round one as I will be adding more images in a few weeks. I feel really good about this first edit. Take a look and let me know what you think. I hope you like them.

Wow. That pretty much sums up how I am feeling right now. Late last night I posted Zachariah’s Portrait along with some information on sponsoring a child (Zachariah specifically) with the hope that maybe one person would feel inclined to support the work being done to educate and love children in Liberia. Those kids, and the Liberian people, have really been on my heart lately, and I just felt it was an opportunity I needed to share. Well, not only was Zachariah sponsored as of early this morning, but all four of the children needing sponsorship have now been supported. I heard from Daryl Finley, the founder of Well Done Organization tonight, and he has received numerous emails from you asking if you can still help. I didn’t expect such an outpouring of love and support, and I just want to say thank you. You really touched my heart today.

Although there are no children currently listed, there are still several children who need sponsors, and it sounds like the program will be expanding shortly. Please make sure to check the website from time to time, or if you want to get on the list you can also use the WDO contact page.

Thank you to everyone who stepped up today to help. Some of you donated your money, some of you helped spread the word on Facebook, and many of you ReTweeted my blog post link. Thank you to everyone. It is so great to be part of this community and to see what we can accomplish when we work together.

Nichelle and I just got back from dinner with the team from MiiR Bottles and Well Done Organization I recently traveled to Liberia with. It was fun to be with everyone again and re-live some of the stories from our trip. Especially for Nichelle to hear stories from other people’s perspectives. In the few weeks since I have been back in the States, I have constantly been thinking and dreaming about all I learned in Africa. There are some ideas and projects I am working on in response to my experience, and I will be sharing more about all of this over the course of the next several months, or maybe longer. Before I get to any of that, though, I need to do yet another website update to accommodate the Liberia project, as well as another personal project I am working on. A book is also in the works and is projected to be out around May. Fingers crossed.

I give up. Jet lag doesn’t usually get the best of me, but here I am wide awake at 2:30 in the morning. Actually being awake at 2:30 am isn’t that big of a deal for me, but the problem this time is I just woke up after sleeping for the past 8 hours. I have a feeling getting back into a Pacific Time rhythm is going to be difficult.
I just realized, many of you probably have no idea what I am talking about. I suppose if you haven’t been on my Twitter feed or Facebook Page you may be out of the loop. Yesterday, I ended a 10 day trip to Liberia with 32 straight hours of traveling. It’s good to be home to say the least. I had an amazing time, met some wonderful people and saw a part of the world I had never been to before. It was quite a learning experience, and I want to thank MiiR Bottles for working with me on this project. I will have a lot more to say and show in the weeks and months to come, but that is not why I am writing now.

Before I left for Liberia, I started a fun contest on Twitter and I want to extend it to everyone who reads my blog as well. It’s very simple. Guess how many pictures I took in Liberia. The person with the closest guess will receive a free print from my trip. One guess per person, and I will only accept guesses left as a comment on this blog post, on Twitter (@johnkeatley) or on my Facebook Page. I am looking for the total number of shots. I shot for 6 1/2 days, and I used my Canon 5D Mark II and Hasselblad H3DII. I will stop taking guesses on the 21st of January at noon PST. If the winner Likes this post on Facebook and or guesses the EXACT number correctly there will be a bonus prize. Good luck! Start posting your guesses.